Judge: No racial disparity in death cases

Updated 11:05 pm, Saturday, October 12, 2013

Black criminal defendants are not more likely to get the death penalty in Connecticut than white defendants, a judge has ruled.

In a 44-page decision, Superior Court Judge Samuel Sferrazza rejected a lawsuit by death row inmates who claimed discrimination, not violations of the law, was responsible for their sentence.

"Constitutional and fair legal procedures may produce unequal results. Inversely, disparate outcomes standing along, do not necessarily mean the legal processes which preceded that outcome were unfair or unlawful," the judge wrote.

"We're pleased with the results, absolutely," said Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane, although he added he expects the inmates to file an appeal of the decision.

Last year Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a law eliminating Connecticut's death penalty for any new cases but leaving the existing 11 inmates on death row. Meanwhile, five of them, Sedrick Cobb, Daniel Webb, Todd Rizzo, Richard Reynolds and Robert Breton filed suit seeking to have their sentences converted from death to life in prison without parole.

Cobb was convicted of raping, robbing and killing a 23-year-old Watertown woman. Breton received a death sentence for beating and stabbing to death his ex-wife and their 16-year-old son in Waterbury. Reynolds was convicted of murdering Waterbury police Officer Walter Williams. Rizzo beat 13-year-old Stanley Edwards of Waterbury to death with a sledgehammer. Webb was convicted of kidnapping, attempting to rape and killing bank executive Diane Gellenbeck in Hartford.

During a series of court hearings before Sferrazza last year, the five inmates, represented by the state public defender, presented a study done by John Donahue, a law professor at Stanford Law School of nine of the state's death penalty cases.

Donahue found, based on his study, that a black perpetrator who killed a white victim in this state had a statistically significant higher probability of being charged with a death penalty offense than a white perpetrator who killed a white victim. Donahue stated that the egregiousness of the crime had little impact on the outcome, with respect to charging or sentencing decisions in the state.

In his decision, however, Sferrazza pointed out that of the nine death penalty cases considered by Donahue's study, only three -- Webb, Cobb and Reynolds -- were black on white offenses.

"The other six capital murders for which the death penalty was imposed and upheld on appeal did not involve a black defendant who murdered a white victim, including those for the petitioners Breton and Rizzo, who are classified as white," the judge stated.